Call and Response – Round 1

Posted on by Diversions LA
Featured image: Ellen M. Friedlander; image directly above: Heather Lowe/Carole Silverstein

The online exhibition Call and Response might be one of the best exhibitions of the art decade, never mind that it happened now, was a direct call to our loneliness, our longing, and our collective creativity.

The project was organized through Shoebox PR and Art & Cake; the dedicated art leadership behind it included those organizations’ helmswoman, Kristine Schomaker, as well as Sheli Silverio, S. Vollie Osborn, Emily Wiseman and Susan T. Kurland.

Kristine Schomaker

In traditional terms, the exhibition uses the process of randomly chosen collaboration to explore ongoing partnered work reminiscent of both jazz riffs and Exquisite Corpse; as “a way for us to stay connected, to check in with each other and to support each other. This is collaboration at a distance.”

Shelli Silverio

But this show goes beyond that description: beautiful, interesting, expanding artworks created from collaborating; a riveting example of what happens in challenging and cheering each other’s abilities; and a way to truly tap into the zeitgeist of what may very well be not just this year, but this decade.

Robyn Alatorre

Creating entirely new works of art inspired by one’s partner’s work of art over a brief course of time is a pretty incredible effort and joy. So too are the formidable amounts of both that the organizers put into mounting the show, on exhibit here:

Contact

View it. Sense it. Be submerged in it.

Xu Darocha

This was truly a formidable and moving project; not in the least because of the often isolation/corona virus related/ elegiac images, but more so in the vastness of the reaching out, the hope and hopefulness in participants voicing plans for future collaborations, feeling heartened by the experience, or confronting their own sense of loss.

Adrienne Cole

In short: in loss there is gain; in waiting there is growth; in stillness, there is a voice; in partnership, the soul is not alone.

This show is a moving, even wonderful, experience. I spent a lot of time enjoying the art works and attended the two hour zoom reception, and each moment spent was a pleasure.

Jackie Bell Johnson

There are too many fine pairings to cite or come close to showing them all, but I wish I could, and I will laundry list the 106 participants by pair at the end of this piece. Rather than reviewing the art – although it is uniformly exceptionally worthy, the amount is overwhelming – I’m offering a taste of the reception, and what the artists felt about the experience.

Go absorb the works online yourself: you will be glad you did.

Cindy Rinne, partnered with Jason Jenn, described their pairing as “exciting…to see that Jason also performed and writes. We did collages and poems every few days, creating with a new perspective. We plan to work together in the future.” Exciting also describes the glow and poetry of their work together, and Jenn adds “It was a great way to stretch.”

Dani Dodge and Stacie Birky Greene’s collaboration “turned out to be awesome… I got images from Stacie, who works in photo montages, and I took what she does and translated that into what I do. To have someone who was so giving and didn’t mind if I got my own image in late… it was a great process to work with her,” Dodge reports. The result was a pairing of haunting, insightful images.

Leora Wien

Ashton Phillips and Leora Wien were similarly inspired. Wien was moved to try  different mediums with Phillips; likewise, Susan Kurland and Lina Kogan found their partnership to be “inspirational.”

Bibi Davidson stretched her oeuvre as well with a vibrant, moving image collaboration with Jen Snoeyink, whose photographic depictions of site-specific installations vibrate with color. Collaborative work above.

Photographic artists Diane Cockerill and Martin Cox agreed that their collaboration “was something to look forward to…it gave meaning to our day, and we were on the same wavelength with what we wanted to say, many times,” Cockerill reports. Cox agrees “I would rush out to find something, shooting close to home…this forced me to come up with something that made sense.” Cockerill adds “The [photographic] stories were a by-product of our exchange.”

L. Aviva Diamond had been in lockdown mode prior to the county-wide safer at home regulations, and found collaborating with Micke Tong – a process she has never done before, an entirely new experience. “It was hard at first,” she says, “I didn’t have any connection with the installations and thedigital art he was doing. But he taught me how to do masks, and connect to his emotions. I’m really proud of what we came up with.” Tong agrees: “It was a joy to communicate with Aviva. She would react to what I was doing and there was a deeper relationship toward our work at the end of the process.” Their work is a dance, as is that of curators Schomaker and Silverio, who also collaborated on art work as well as the exhibition.

Schomaker relates “The idea for Call and Response came as a way to help artists. Shelli convinced me to do this. We played off each other’s art and emotions, and it got me out of the anxious mind set I was in sometimes.” Silverio adds “A lot of the time we are giving advice to artists, but for myself, I didn’t take my own advice. This was a really good exercise.”

Dwora Fried, working with Jeremy Hight, adds “I was inspired by Jeremy. I had a lot of insecurity at the beginning but then I began to feel that things would more than work out.” Something to remember in general, today.

David Isaacson says of his pairing with Amy Kaps, above “Her art came fast and fun. I was sacred shitless, but I was born to do this. Working with a performing artist like Amy was exciting. We hope to make a future performance art piece together.”

And Kayla Cloonan relates of her work with Misty Mawn, “I typically work in abstraction, while Misty is primarily figurative. She got me out of myself, and it was really rejuvenating.”

Julia Montgomery said of working with Kristine Augustyn. “I didn’t want to stop, I couldn’t stop. This kept me going.” Augustyn adds “She gave me a place to focus, to see her working was so exciting. It was an organic experience, and we built something.”

Building something: the concept of Call and Response as a whole.

Given 24 hours per participant to answer each other’s “call,” these works, are especially profound given this constraint. Some artists built upon each other’s piece; others bounced ideas back and forth. All created work that was important to the spirit: their own, and that of the viewers.

Image above – Ellen M. Friedlander

Kimberly Morris, above

In all, those exhibiting include:

Nora Cohen/Emily Wiseman
Jen Snoeyink/ Bibi Davidson
Gini Mann-Deibert/Debbie Carlson
Ashton S. Phillips/Leora Wien
Ashley L. Gnar/Yvonne Jongeling
Kenzie Dickens/Laura Henneforth
Cia Foreman/Kat Nuñez
Paula Goldman/Karen Fisher
Chris Fontaine/Kimberlee Koym-Murteira
Jacki Morie/Zarina Silverman
Kayla Cloonan/ Misty Mawn
Larissa Nickel/Ted Meyer
Jesse Standlea/Dafna Steinberg
Leticia Velasquez/Reneé Fox
Isa Gordon/Robyn Alatorre
Kristine Augustyn/Julia Montgomery
Adrienne Cole/Gina Herrera
Anne M Bray/Sina Evans
Cathy Breslaw/Susan J. Osborn
Dale Voelker/Samantha Fields
Sally Baxter/Karen Hochman Brown
Jason Jenn/Cindy Rinne
Darren McManus/Xu Darocha
S. Vollie Osborn/Alyssa Haley Moon
Micke Tong/L. Aviva Diamond
Laura London/Heather Arndt
Conchi Sanford/Ellen Friedlander
Bee Colman/Cassandra Takeshi
Audrey Coates/Lissa Young
Jeremy Hight/Dwora Fried
Martin Cox/Diane Cockerill
Kimberly Morris/Tom Lasley
Lorraine Bubar/Jody Zellen
Albert Valdez/John Park
David Isakson/Amy Kaps
Carole Silverstein/Heather Lowe
Emily Silver/Angela Brooks
Hillary Ramirez/Sadhana Bhetuwal
Susan Kaufer Carey/Madeline Arnault
Coleman Griffith/Lynn Azali
Jacqueline Bell Johnson/Kris Hodson Moore
Michelle Andrade/Sohani Holland
William Hemmerdinger/Teresa Coates
Lina Kogan/Susan Kurland
Liliana Hueso/Andee Rudloff
Jill D’Agnenica/Victor Wilde
Allison Butcher/Leah Shane Dixon
Kristine Schomaker/Sheli Silverio
Kerrie Smith/Aazam Irilian
Dani Dodge/Stacie Birky Greene
Adeo Las/Diane Linquata
Rebecca Bennett Duke/Leyna Lighman

There is a Round 2 of Call and Response, with an online reception scheduled for May 9th – and in which, I am participating with the written word and the occasional photo image in collaboration with my randomly chosen partner, Adrienne Cole.

Be sure to watch for the invitation to attend the virtual reception, and visit the work. There’s life out there in the void. You’ll want to experience it.

Genie Davis; photos provided by Shoebox Projects; featured image by Ellen M. Friedlander.

Together Now – Tackling Isolation Through Art

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Artist Trine Churchill is using her art to defeat isolation. And what better way than to make YOU a part of that. Her participatory project Together Now began as a neighborly, local project and has now grown a global focus – and you can be a part of it, too.

“We are going through the very same human experience right now. I couldn’t shake it out of my head, the historic moment of sheltering – and who are we sheltering with? Families, roommates, your cat? Or are you by yourself? I wanted to document this future memory in a painting,” Churchill attests.

“And I wanted to engage with people anywhere and hopefully give them a sense of coming together despite what differences we might have culturally and socially.”

According to the artist, all of you reading this article can participate. “It is easy – and hopefully fun – to do. Take a picture. Send it to me. That’s it. If I end up creating a painting based on your picture, I mail off a really nice high-quality, archival print of the paintings. I sign it to you – and send it to you wherever you live.”

Churchill is currently at an early project stage, waiting to see how people are responding overall.

“I would love to see an exhibition of all these paintings. I see them covering the walls, lined up and giving a simultaneous window into how we lived the year 2020, separated but together. A book could be another way to go about it. And that would allow me to write more in words too, tell people’s verbal stories along with the paintings doing their own storytelling.”

She wants as many to participate as possible. “I’ll paint until we are no longer sheltering,” she says, but possibly for much longer than that. Her only criteria is that the photograph sent to her has to be taken during these sheltering times.

“Ideally, the picture would include a little bit of where you are sheltering, your surroundings, your room. Let me know where you live, and tell me how you are doing. And of course, I would love to get everyone’s help in spreading the word, and giving this project legs to walk on,” Churchill explains.

Like past work of Churchill’s, above, this new body of work is dreamy, delicate, and filled with a true sense of humanity.

Jude – an image from Trine Churchill’s Together Now series

Works created thus far, including “Jude,” depicting a small child looking out at the bright world, safe and solitary, but awash in grey inside, are richly moving. Her works have always been lush and figurative, and are so here.

The artist is a story-teller, and as such, she describes her work as “often based on memories with a dream-like or fantasy twist.” In previous series, she describes her paintings as “based on my own family’s photos and history. With the Together Now project, that will change.”

Her images are now “based on somebody else’s photo and moment, and I will be creating their memory paintings. However, what I am finding already with the kind of paintings that I do, is that even the most personal moment finds it ways into a shared universal space of human existence.”

And isn’t that what being together, right now, when we are physically removed, all about?

Send your photos to Churchill at: tc@trinechurchill.com

Check out her 3-minute video about the project:

https://www.trinechurchill-store.com/the-together-now-project

And let’s share the news together. You can find more info through Churchill’s own newsletters at  

https://www.trinechurchill-store.com/newsletter-sign-up

And on Facebook and Instagram:

https://www.instagram.com/trinechurchillart https://www.facebook.com/Trine-Churchill-studio-115916608426457

Genie Davis; photos: Trine Churchill

LAAA Gallery 825 Offers Lustrous Solo and Group Exhibitions

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Group exhibition, Penumbra

With three fine solo shows and one group show, the Los Angeles Art Associations Gallery 825’s current exhibitions, which opened February 22nd, are each deeply rewarding.

Suzanne Pratt

Suzanne Pratt’s exhibit bird·song, which is profoundly meditative, focusing on the transitory yet eternal in the immediate moment. The precise but seeming infinite images weave a complexity rooted in a primal sense of life-force. Spirals, shell-like shapes, seemingly-petaled pieces such as the artist’s richly dimensional “niyamita,” compel a closer look at the world itself as filled with meaning. Dimensional and riveting.

L. Aviva Diamond

L. Aviva Diamond’s large-scale photography also offers a dazzle of meditative works – these riveting works depict water as an entire world – in her glowing Light Stream. Euphoric and filled with a swirling dance that pulls the viewer within them, these sensational abstract images transport the viewer to another world that is both mysterious and magical. 

Mark Indig

Photographer Mark Indig uses architectural shapes in his new body of photographic work, Naked Triangles. Skeletal and powerful, described as “x-rays of our culture,” radio towers and cell phone transmitters are depicted with grace, as stark, lovely, and spare, like castle turrets and church steeples for our time. Electric wires and their connection points stand like robotic sentinels, watchfully ominous. The delicacy of their construction reminds the viewer of the art of Watts Towers at first glance; a second look creates a less benign view, as if of a technological take-over.

Osceola Refetoff

And finally, the group show on exhibit, Penumbra, juried by stARTup Art Fair’s founder Ray Beldner, offers black and white as the palette in a variety of mediums. Participating artists include Larry Brownstein, Amy Fox, Donna Gough, Rob Grad, Gina Herrera, Susan Lasch Krevitt, Campbell Laird, Rich Lanet, Colleen Otcasek, Joy Ray, Osceola Refetoff, Melissa Reischman, Catherine Ruane, Seda Saar, Catherine Singer and Stephanie Sydney.

Catherine Ruane

From Catherine Ruane’s lushly nuanced nature in her graphite drawing “Magwitch” to Osceola Refetoff’s haunting infrared photographic sunset image of “Leaving Trona,” to Joy Ray’s mystical, textural wall sculpture, this is another rewarding powerhouse of a show.

Don’t miss!

  • Genie Davis; photos provided by the artists; exhibition photos from LAAA

Eric Sanders: Philanthropy is a Part of His Art

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Eric Sanders with an abstract work from 2019

Artist Eric Sanders has always painted, but spent a three-decade hiatus from his art as he focused on an entrepreneurial career. But 6 years ago, the Manhattan Beach-based artist returned to his art full-time, working in both traditional mediums and digital.

His devotion to art-making is rivaled only by his involvement in philanthropy, through the Sanders Family Foundation, which he founded in 2015. The non-profit supports organizations such as the Global Livingston Institute, Groundswell International, Nuru International, and World Neighbors, among others.

Sanders’ work appears in many private collections

“I think it’s noteworthy that this is a philanthropic journey for me as well as an artistic or creative one,” he relates. “All of the proceeds I make are directed to my private foundation which is focused on sustainable change in developing countries.”

The goal: maximum impact to support these organizations while following his muse, which he says is inspired by 20th century artists from Basquiat to Picasso. While his most current work marks a shift from the abstract to the figurative, regardless of form or the medium he uses to create it, his work is all about his perception of and relationship to the world around him visually.

Figurative work is one style he embraces

“I’m enjoying exploring different styles and learning about what I enjoy painting; what I’m naturally more skilled at, and how those two attributes intersect,” he says. “Since my show at the end of September 2019, I have been returning to figurative work because my show was very much focused on pure abstract painting. Because I am now jumping alternately between abstract and figurative, one could make the argument that it’s both a departure and an outgrowth of past work,” Sanders attests.

California Landscape

His work is characteristically bold and visceral whether figurative or abstract. He relates that he is not quite sure how he achieves this, only that “I just paint what I like and it’s up to the viewer to determine how it affects them. That said, I am heavily influenced by a lot of artists and that their genius may be being channeled through me.”  

From Resevoir Abstract Series

Sanders starts constructing and conceptualizing his work from one of three inspiration points. “First, I often start creating an abstract painting with just one color or a combination of two or three of them in mind, and just go with the flow of where the painting takes me. Second, I start with a particular style of an artist I am inspired by and try, and create my own image but incorporate their style. And third, I’m exploring by using various techniques, such as assemblage, encaustic, painting on digital images, silk screen prints; or a specific material e.g. leather scraps, painting patterns with mesh, using tape for masking, using templates for masking, using dyes or alcohol inks,” among other mediums.

When it comes to his rich and varied palette, he has one answer only for his choices: “I try to be deliberate about not being a ‘one color’ artist and keep looking for a different color to work with that I haven’t used in a while.” As to whether a given piece will be abstract vs. figurative, he explains that the decision is very much driven by “what I’m in the mood for that day when I go to paint.”

Side Order of Bacon

Sanders prefers to paint in oil, despite the long time required to create in this medium. “I usually work on one image at a time, but for my recent show, I worked on as many as a dozen or more at a time and was using a lot more acrylic than previously to speed up drying and processing time. I prefer to paint in oil because the colors are more vivid to my eye, but the drying time and having to use turpenoids to clean brushes and palette knives is a drag,” he admits.

Definitely not a drag: witnessing Sanders’ passion for art and committment to paying that passion forward and helping others.

  • Genie Davis; photos provided by artist